BRIDGE BRIEF Information for Newport City Homes customers
January 2022
Pupils pack time capsule with memories Page 14
Fire safety
Updated rules for communal areas Meet our new apprentices Page 11 Our services are changing Page 12-13 Find out how your comments and data improve services Page 15 and more...
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Our Social Purpose Our social purpose has always been to provide good quality homes in communities where people want to live. Over the last year we have seen the world change and present new challenges both for you and to the way we work. We have been listening to you, our customers, to understand how we can make the biggest positive difference to your lives. These are the five priorities you helped us develop: ■
Employability Support Help you get work, volunteering and education opportunities
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Safe and Connected Communities Help you connect with others, live in safe homes and neighbourhoods and be involved in your community
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Financial Inclusion Help you get affordable financial services and products to make the most of your money
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Digital Inclusion Help you benefit from being online with access to information, services and other opportunities
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Health & Wellbeing Help you make choices to improve and maintain your physical and mental health
Benefits of our Social Purpose We have a proud history of investing in Newport and delivering services that support you, our customers. Our Social Purpose programme helps us to have a conversation on the issues that matter most to you and your communities. This means we can work better together and listen to the work you want us to support and why.
What does ‘social purpose’ mean? We recognise that we have a responsibility to do much more than provide houses. This means that as well as the delivery of core housing management and maintenance services we must ensure our broader services, activities and partnerships have a positive impact on our customers and partners to improve lives and support thriving communities.
Impact of our Social Purpose The pandemic has seen us focus on providing essential services while we paused some work so we could do extra things to help you. For example, during the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic our colleagues made over 30,000 calls to customers to check on their wellbeing. We need your help to decide what services should restart and what new ones do you value and want us to continue.
We love making your communities a nicer place to live
Coronavirus
Keeping you safe If our colleagues have to work in your home they follow the latest Covid-19 guidance to keep you and themselves safe. Thank you for your patience and support since the start of the pandemic as our services have had to change at times. Visit our website for the latest information on our services.
newportcityhomes.com
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Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
Thank you Our wonderful customers
Five Newport City Homes customers helped us recruit two new colleagues. They volunteered to be part of our interview days for head of housing management and head of communities and wellbeing.
Sharon Wilkins, our deputy director of homes and communities said: “The most powerful way to test customer focus, is to listen to the views of our customers as part of the interview and selection process.”
Tom Scott said: “To anyone thinking of joining the customer interview panel please do. You are helping to shape the future of NCH and providing a viewpoint from the customers’ perspective.”
Bhunesh Napal said: “It was enjoyable to get back involved with NCH interviewing panels feeling engaged and contributing to decision making.”
Craig Bartlett said: “Any applicant reaching the interview stage knows without any doubt that residents are a vital part of the puzzle when it comes to pretty much everything that NCH does.”
Craig
Bhunesh
Keith
Keith Wood said: “I am sure this process allows Newport City Homes to view the candidates from the customers’ perspective, which should be important for the business.” Zoey Newton-Karbautzki said: “I thought it would be a good experience to see first-hand the candidates for each role, and also gain insight as to the workings of NCH and the candidates.”
Tom and Zoey
January 2022
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Out and about in our city Our estates teams work across the city carrying out vital work to keep k th the community it where you live safe and nice to live in. You may spot them doing everything from checks inside a block of flats, to cutting overgrown hedges or clearing litter. Check out these photos of our teams working in Ringland, Caerleon and Eveswell Primary School. They work in all weather and love hearing compliments about their work. One customer called us and said: “I just wanted to let you know the guys that came and cut the hedge by my home have done an amazing job and I’m really pleased with the work they did. Thank you.”
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Estates – What do they do? The team cover six services and this is a tiny snapshot of their work: ■
Estate Caretakers – They are responsible for flytipping fl and excess waste disposal, cleaning communal areas, garage areas, open green spaces, litter picking, weed spraying, grounds maintenance work and daily safety inspections.
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Grounds Maintenance – Responsible for cutting one million square metres of grass on each cut. They maintain 18,000 cubic metres of shrubs and hedges.
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Watercourse Team – Look after our legal responsibilities around our watercourses. They work with community groups and other agencies to improve neglected areas of watercourses for the benefit of the public. This team also maintain vulnerable residents’ gardens twice a year.
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Trees – They manage 12,500 trees.
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Communal Caretakers – They clean internal areas of communal blocks and litter pick around them. The team also check communal areas to keep customers safe from fire risks.
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Estate Cleaners – General cleaning which can range from our own offices to the high-rise flats and some parts of our 55+ buildings. They litter pick and report any trip hazards and also maintain, check and clean our shopping centres.
Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
Spot any problems? If you see something our Estates team should check out please contact us using any of the ways on the back page.
January 2022
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Safer Streets
Pillgwenlly Free SmartWater pack for every Pillgwenlly resident We have teamed up with Gwent Police and other organisations in the city to help reduce crime in Pillgwenlly. The project is called Safer Streets and it has been given just under £400,000 from the UK Government. One of the measures will see every customer in Pillgwenlly able to have a free SmartWater pack so they can secure their belongings with a liquid that is invisible to the naked eye and can only be seen under a UV light. The markings make it harder for thieves to sell stolen items so means they are less likely to take them. Search for ‘safer streets’ on gwent.police.uk to read more about what is happening. The site says that they: ■
Will give you help and support to make your home more secure
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74%*
of offenders would not burgle a home if a SmartWater sign was on display. * Taken from swt.smartwater.com
Might be able to supply and fit extra security locks for your windows and doors
Are working with Newport City Council to introduce further security measures, including CCTV, to make your streets safe Carolyn Prothero, Corporate Housing Services Manager from Newport City Homes, said: “We are proud to be part of the bid through our membership of Safer Newport community safety partnership and the ‘OneNewport’ Public Sector Board. “Some of our staff are helping to give the packs out to Pill customers alongside officers from Gwent Police’s We Don’t Buy Crime team. Our colleagues will use their local knowledge to help make the project a success.” ■
Repairs Cafe A combined repair shop and ‘library of things’ opened up in one of our city centre developments this summer. Repair Cafe Wales and Benthyg Cymru have set up Re:Make Newport, a permanent repair space and ‘library of things’. Residents can get free repairs, access skill-sharing workshops and borrow a range of household items such as a DIY tools, gardening equipment and even board games at low cost.
Get free repairs on household items
There are several memberships available including a free option. Borrowing and workshop fees can be paid in cash or card, or through volunteering time in a system of ‘time credits’. Re:Make Newport is based at 26 Skinner Street. Visit remakenewport.org A workshop inside Newport’s new repairs cafe 06
Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
Pupils plant bulbs at Eveswell Primary School
A better, green future Our Board has decided what we will do to play our part in reducing our carbon footprint and making our homes more energy-efficient. Climate change is happening now and the next decade is crucial for tackling the major environmental issues affecting the planet. We will help you to live sustainably so we can work together to ease the climate transition. Our commitment to environmental sustainability sets out how we can help achieve a Net Zero Wales together. Our carbon footprint for 2019/20 ■
26,718 tonnes – our total carbon footprint.
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A forest the quarter of the size of Newport would be needed to absorb this amount of emissions from the atmosphere each year.
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93.6% of emissions are from our homes. Visit carbonfootprint.com calculator to work out your own carbon footprint
Alway community garden Turn to page nine to see how we’re transforming a fly-tipping hotspot into a vegetable growing garden with wildflowers. Some of the things we will do over the next three years include: ■
Work together to test the most suitable energy saving solutions for our homes
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Trial the latest methods of construction for new homes
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Build relationships with local community groups and schools
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Provide support to customers struggling to afford to heat their homes
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Try out new ways to improve biodiversity
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Review our land and consider areas for tree planting, rewilding, or alternative uses to benefit the environment and local area
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Help for local schools We love supporting local projects that can help us achieve our sustainability targets. In early December we gave £300 to Eveswell Primary School for pupils to plant bulbs and renew the wooden panels around their pond in their outdoor learning area. We thought it was a fantastic way to encourage children to improve their local environment themselves and make it nicer to learn outdoors. They also told us their nursery vegetable patch was overgrown and they needed some bark chippings on the floor around their outdoor lunch tables. Our Watercourse Team leapt into action and spent a day at the school doing these jobs.
Trial electric vehicles
The image on the right shows a members of our Watercourse Team clearing the overgrown nursery veg patch at Eveswell Primary School
January 2022
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Bassaleg’s new and improved chemist The new and improved chemist has opened at St Basils Stores in Bassaleg, after several years of planning and months of construction. The larger store now has the space required to carry services such as Covid-19 vaccinations and boosters in the future. Murad Ali, a business owner and an NCH leaseholder, runs a hairdresser and a chemist at St Basils Stores in Bassaleg. Over the years as the chemist has got busier, the team have found it hard to provide the necessary service to the community from their small premises. Mr Ali is a leaseholder, and we have been working closely with him to work out a way for him to extend his chemist and have a larger space to store
Murad Ali outside the temporary chemist while work was taking place in November on the new shop. medicines, hold consultations and keep up with the busy Bassaleg community. After a lot of hard work and careful planning, Mr Ali has swapped the chemist with the hairdresser on the end of the terrace, enabling him to extend front and back creating a
fantastic new space from which to dispense medicines and hold consultations. The new extension also means that the team have a staffroom, a big improvement from their previous premises a few doors down.
Money saving tips for 2022 Rising energy prices and the cost of our weekly shop going up mean there is no better time to look for ways to save money. Try out these five tips and save a bit extra in 2022. 1. Keep a list of everything you spend for one month. This will help you see where your money is being spent and help you ask yourself, ‘did I need that?’ or ‘could I get that cheaper elsewhere?’
4. Find low-cost recipes online and search for things like ‘family meals for £5’. Cook large portions and freeze leftovers (if that meal is safe to be frozen) for future meals. 5. When was the last time you asked your mobile phone company for a deal? Give them a call and threaten to leave for a new provider.
2. Newport has a variety of charity shops where you can pick up vintage and upcycled items. Social media sites like Facebook Marketplace can help you grab a pre-loved bargain on your doorstep. 3. Ask your friends and family what they are paying for energy bills to compare and find out their suppliers.
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Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
Preventing damp and mould Our new booklet explains the most common causes of damp and mould, what you can do to reduce it and how we can work together to get to the root of the problem. Some homes suffer from condensation and damp which can lead to mould. Mould is usually found in places where there is poor air flow and cold spots. Your safety is our number one priority so we want to work with you to make sure you’re Preventing damp and mould safe, warm and secure in your home at all times. Visit our website and search for ‘damp and mould’ to read more and download a copy of the booklet. Report a problem If you are experiencing any of these problems contact us using any of the ways on the back page.
New community garden in Alway A new community garden is being built in Alway on a patch of unused land. We teamed up with Keep Wales Tidy and Lovell to transform the site next to Ladyhill Green. The new homes at nearby Cot Farm in Ringland were built by Lovell for us and they wanted to do some extra community work linked to their 50th anniversary. A team of their staff built a concrete slab ready for a new greenhouse and a grant from Keep Wales Tidy has helped buy materials. Staff from Keep Wales Tidy and Newport City Homes have spent time working in the The team from Newport City Homes and Keep Wales Tidy in the garden garden every Monday. The site now has a shed, greenhouse, seating area, compost bins and gravel chippings. A local school plan to use it as an outdoor classroom and all of the food grown on the allotment will go to a food bank. Chris Partridge, Project Officer at Keep Wales Tidy, said: “I’m sure lots of people will now enjoy using the space and the food grown here will benefit plenty more people locally too. The scheme is part of a wider Welsh Government ‘Local Places for Nature’ fund committed to creating, restoring and enhancing nature ‘on your doorstep’.” The team build a shed in the garden January 2022
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G IN ! M N COSOO
New homes
nts e e m t r a H ou s 60 a p Olympia
are com
at ing soon
in the city
Across the city we are building new affordable homes to suit different needs. Our ‘ready’ dates can change as building homes can be affected by the weather, Covid-19 and supply issues. Keep an eye on our website for updates on all of these sites.
will be re Dock Street
ady in
022 October 2
Upper
Mountbatten
24 homes, a mix of apartments and houses, all for social rent will be ready in Summer 2022. Ringland Masterplan We hope to start a big project to build approximately 170 homes plus commercial units in January 2022. Olympia House 60 apartments with a mix of social rent, private rent, Rent to Own and Shared Ownership will be ready in March 2022. Coverack Road
Upper Dock Street 18 apartments for social rent will be ready in October 2022. Stow Hill 36 apartments and three commercial units with a mix of social rent, private rent, intermediate rent and Shared Ownership will be ready in 2023. Cardiff Road Five houses for social rent will be ready in March 2023.
76 apartments across two blocks with a mix of social rent, private rent, Rent to Own and Shared Ownership will be ready in February 2022.
Your water bills are changing Since 2012, we have billed and collected water charges on behalf of Welsh Water for many customers. From 1 April 2022, this is changing and Welsh Water are taking over this process, so they will handle all bills and payments directly. If you’re one of these customers look out for your letter from Welsh Water, which will contain everything you need to know, as well as important information like your account number and customer reference. You don’t need to do anything until you hear from Welsh Water. Visit dwrcymru.com to find out more about Welsh Water billing
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Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
Meet our new apprentices
In the last edition we said we were about to recruit six apprentices. We had a fantastic response from people who wanted to learn a trade while studying at college. They all started with us in September and each one was paired with an experienced member of our trades team.
Say hello
to them if you spot them working in your home. Our apprentice programme has been running since 2009 and we love seeing new starters arrive and move through their qualifications before going on to get a job.
Nathan Plasterer
Rachel
Carpenter
Gemma
Painter & Decorator
Josh
Plasterer
Ben
Carpenter
Kayne Carpenter
Our sixth apprentice is Kayne, a carpenter. We will try and get his photo in the next Bridge Brief
New community bike hub A community bike hub is being set up in an empty shop at 24 Skinner Street to encourage more people to cycle to the city centre. The hub, a partnership between the council, NCH, Gwent Police and local charity, The Gap Wales will start pay-asyou-go indoor secure bike parking in the city centre.
Graham Kuhlmann from TSD Group, a senior project manager for the Umbra Building Services Ltd, Mark Seymour from The Gap Wales, Peter Page and Laura Palfrey, both from Newport City Homes.
Regular bike activities such as SmartWater marking days with Gwent Police, bike safety advice sessions, bike repair workshops, children’s bike trade ins and secondhand bike sales will also run from the premises. The project will become home to a community bike recycling scheme, which repairs old bicycles and gives them to refugees and asylum seekers on low incomes. Volunteers with The Gap Wales, who have a community centre on Stow Hill, will do the repairs in the shop. The project has been run from the Kingsway Centre and last year gave away 200 bikes, mostly using spare parts from other donated bikes. To kickstart the project a contractor working for us, Umbra Building Services Ltd, has donated £1,000. We are using Umbra to convert the upstairs of nearby 11-16 Upper Dock Street into 18 flats. The company wanted to support local projects so used our community benefits scheme to make a donation to the project.
January 2022
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We’re changing for We’re nearly at the end of our second year of delivering our NCH Strategy 2025, which sets out our five-year plan. It’s ambitious, and we know that we have a lot to do to deliver on our three key principles:
We will deliver value for money
We will improve customer satisfaction
Customers at the heart of NCH Delivering value for money is the right thing to do as a social landlord. It’s what our customers expect from us and it enables us to do more. We also want to improve the experience you receive and make NCH a housing association to be proud of. To help us do this, we’re focusing on improving the services that matter most to you, so that you have a much better experience when you need us.
We will grow our association
What are we doing? A better experience when you need a repair We know from your feedback that our repairs service can be frustrating. We’re reviewing the way we deliver repairs from start to finish – this includes the repairs that we do, how we do them and the way that we communicate with you about your repair taking place. We’ll be focusing on neighbourhoods At the moment, our teams deliver services across all areas. This means that you may speak to several people when you need help. This doesn’t make for a great experience, so we’re changing our focus on the way our tenancy management and income teams provide advice and support. From April 2022, we’ll be introducing Neighbourhood Managers – this means that our colleagues will be focused on delivering services within a specific area, and you’ll have a dedicated person to speak to if you need help. We’ll be introducing our Neighbourhood Managers to you over the coming months, so keep an eye on our social media and website for more information!
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Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
the better in 2022 NCH App
Have you ever wished that NCH had an app like other services – one where you can book your repair when you need it, report issues like ASB, or pay your rent? We’re really excited to be launching the NCH App in 2022, especially as you will be able to book a repair online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s important that the new app works for you. We’re building the app at the moment, and we’ll be asking some of our customers to test it through our NCH Connected Facebook group. If you’d like to be involved, make sure you join the group for our latest updates.
Digital by choice We will be improving our digital services, but we completely understand that not all of our customers are online. We’re also improving our contact centre, to make it easier to get in touch with us when you need to. This includes having more colleagues available to help at our busiest times.
Scan this QR code with your mobile phone and join NCH Connected.
These changes will start to happen from April 2022.
We’ll be clearer on what services we offer
Improving our commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion
Customers in our NCH Connected Facebook group have told us that we’re not clear enough on the repairs services we offer.
The communities we serve are diverse, so we’re determined to make sure our association reflects that diversity.
We know that we need to do better, so as part of our review into the way we deliver repairs, we’re also looking at the services we provide.
We’re committed to being open and inclusive, treating customers and colleagues with dignity, respect and fairness, and giving everyone the opportunity to grow and develop. Our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion will shape the way we work for the better.
We’ll share this in the coming months so that you know exactly what repairs we do and don’t do.
We’re also looking at the diversity of our colleagues, because having a team made up of people from different backgrounds will bring new and better ways of doing things and help us provide an even better service to our customers. We believe that everyone has a right to be heard, valued and respected.
Look out for more in 2022 We’re really excited about these changes, and we think that they will provide a much better experience for our customers. Look out for information on these changes and more coming in 2022.
January 2022
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e e d in a M in le u s p a c e im T Pupils at Maindee Primary School have packed a time capsule with memories and items from 2021. We teamed up with the school and our contractor, Jehu, who is building 76 homes at Coverack Road. As part of our community benefits work with Jehu, we gave the school the time capsule and pupils had fun deciding what should go in it to be discovered in hundreds or thousands of years. The capsule will be buried at Coverack Road, which is only 200m from the school.
Support for y it n u m m o C l e h t e B Church A Newport community centre that helps refugees and asylum seekers has been given £3,000 from a contractor working for us, Umbra Building Services Ltd. Stow Hill’s Bethel Community Church own the centre next door- the home for The Gap Wales. The team run activities including English as a Second Language classes to help members integrate into the community. We are using Umbra Building Services Ltd to convert the upstairs of 11-16 Upper Dock Street, a few minutes’ walk away from the church, into 18 flats. The company wanted to support a local project and used our community benefits scheme to make a donation. 14
Graham Kuhlmann from TSD Group, a senior project manager for the Umbra Building Services Ltd, Pastor Andrew Cleverly, Peter Page and Laura Palfrey, both from Newport City Homes.
Pastor Andrew Cleverly from the church said:
“We are so grateful for this donation as it will help us to upgrade our facilities so that we can continue to help the most vulnerable in our city.”
Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
Learn how your data helps improve our services for you Your data helps us to provide our services – whether it’s getting in touch about a repair, asking for your opinion or supporting your welfare. What you tell us is vital to make sure our services to you are always getting better. We only hold information we need and look after it carefully. ■
Checking your data Right now, we are reviewing what we have and making sure it’s up to date. We will do this once a year. When you contact us we may ask you a few questions to check that the information we have for you is accurate. At the same time we may ask for more information as we start new services or ways of supporting you.
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Personal information We may ask you for personal information such as disabilities or language requirements. Please let us know if you would prefer not to tell us. We would only ask because we believe it will help us to offer you a better service and will only be used for the purposes in which it was collected.
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Appointment 14th Februar y at 11am
Digital information We are taking a more digital approach and contacting customers by email where possible. This provides several benefits around timeliness, value for money and sustainability. We already have an email address for more than half of our customers but regularly need to check they are correct and to collect them where available. If you prefer paper communication, that’s no problem – just let us know. We want to keep you informed, but some of the information we could send you may not be of interest to you. We can offer you the choice of what you receive. We will always make sure we send you important documents, such as rent letters and information about key services, but we also want to give you a chance to tell us how our services are working or let you know about interesting opportunities. You can tell us your contact preferences when you speak to one of our colleagues.
Every week our colleagues visit 100s of homes across the city for repairs, checks and improvements. There is a great demand on our services and we do everything we can to make sure our colleagues’ diaries make the most of their day. One thing that causes a problem is when a customer isn’t at home when we arrive for an appointment. It means a wasted journey and our colleagues could have done work in someone else’s home. Life can get in the way and mean you can’t be in at the time we agreed. But please let us know as soon as you can so we can offer your appointment time to someone else and rearrange your time. Thank you.
If we don’t have your email we will call or write to you.
Call us on 01633 381 111 and tell us your contact preferences.
If you want to know more about your data rights visit the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website at
ico.org.uk/your-datamatters
January 2022
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Fire safety New safety regulations have been brought in by the Welsh Government to keep customers who live in flats, and any homes that have shared responsibility for an area, safer in their home. The Fire Safety Act 2021 gives us, your landlord, clear responsibilities for new areas of these buildings. This includes external walls of a building, balconies and fire doors (your front door) to individual flats for the first time. Reducing risks ■
The Act tells us to reduce fire risk whenever possible. This is in addition to our work assessing and managing fire risks.
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To help with this the fire service can use extra enforcement powers if the requirements of the Act are not being followed.
What are we doing to keep you safe? Our job is to make sure your home is safe to live in and these are some of the ways we make fire safety a priority. ■
We are following the requirements of the Act.
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Safety checks – our Compliance Team will contact you at the due dates to carry out electrical and gas checks. We also carry out smoke, heat and CO2 detector checks and replace any when needed.
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Inspections – We carry out front door inspections on a regular cycle.
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Fire Risk Assessments – Our contractors carry out building inspections on a regular cycle.
Please help us by being home at the time of your appointment. ■
We have two dedicated Fire Safety Officers who give advice and guidance to the people who do the repairs and maintenance to our homes.
A group of firefighters prepare to carry out a ‘mock rescue’ at Milton Court in Ringland.
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Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
What can I do? You have a responsibility to keep yourself and your neighbours safe in your building. ■
Please follow the fire safety measures put in place for your protection and do not interfere with them. For example, do not remove detectors or replace fire resisting doors. Instead, contact us for advice.
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Keep the communal areas clear so you and your neighbours can evacuate safely in an emergency.
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Ask us if you have any questions or concerns and we will help and use the expertise of our Fire Safety Officer if needed.
Firefighters ‘rescue’ this life-sized doll from a flat in Milton Court in Ringland.
Home fire safety check The South Wales Fire and Rescue Service website is packed with information to reduce the risk of a fire in your home. Visit southwales-fire.gov.uk for more information or to make an appointment to check your home.
Firefighters test their high-rise platform at Greenwood House.
All of our high-rise blocks have water sprinklers.
Tell us your concerns Contact us using any of the ways on the back page if you have any concerns about fire safety in your building. Please give us feedback on how we are doing. The NCH Connected Facebook group is a great way do this online.
Do not use the lifts if you have to evacuate your block.
Scan this QR code with your mobile phone and join NCH Connected.
Videos Check out our social media channels for some videos we did with South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.
Communal areas- keep them clear We are emphasising our approach to communal areas. They must be kept clear of all items to reduce the risk of fire and make it easy to evacuate your building. Items can make a fire spread quicker and make it more dangerous for firefighters to tackle. Our colleagues have been trained and a booklet has been posted out customers who live in blocks with communal areas to explain why it’s important communal areas are kept clear. You can download a copy from our website.
Your responsibilities for maintaining communal areas ■
Do not leave rubbish or obstacles outside your home
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Do not wedge fire doors open
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Do not smoke in communal areas
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Keep communal areas free of obstruction
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Dispose of all rubbish correctly.
January 2022
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Mutual Exchanges If you want to move home, you may be able to swap homes with another customer, with our approval. This is known as a mutual exchange.
If you have an ‘Assured Tenancy’, this means your tenancy doesn’t have an end date, and you are eligible to swap homes with: ■ Another NCH customer with an ‘Assured Tenancy’ ■ A customer of another Housing Association with an ‘Assured Tenancy’ ■ A secure tenant of a council If you have an ‘Assured Shorthold Tenancy’ you are not eligible to swap homes.
Are you eligible to exchange your home? It’s important that you find out if you are eligible to swap homes before you submit an application. Our application form contains guidance notes so please read these carefully. It explains what type and size of home you can swap with based on your household size and the most common reasons why exchanges are rejected. Next steps – This is a quick summary. Make sure you Search ‘mutual exchange’ on our website for more information and links to the forms you need. ■ If you are eligible to exchange you have to find someone who also wants to swap homes. The homeswapper.co.uk website is one way to find a new home. Some people find a swap on sites like Facebook. ■ Once you have found someone to exchange properties with, you need to visit the property to see it in person and make sure that you want to live there.
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Fill in a mutual exchange application form.
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Fill in the property condition self-assessment form.
Send us the forms. Once we check and confirm your eligibility we will arrange a home inspection. If there are outstanding debts on your tenancy account, you’ll have 28 days to clear them. If they’re not cleared within this time, we’ll close your application. ■
How long does the process usually take? We aim to reach a decision on an exchange application within 42 days but this depends on a lot of different factors. For example, if there is a delay in one customer submitting all their information or clearing their rent debt, this will hold up the exchange chain or may even prevent it happening.
£100 Winter Fuel Allowance
You could get a one-off £100 payment to help pay your winter fuel bills. The scheme is open to households where one member receives certain welfare benefit. You must have been claiming one of these benefits at any time between 1 December 2021 and 31 January 2022. ■ Income Support. ■ Income Based Job Seekers Allowance. ■ Income Related Employment and Support Allowance. 18
Universal Credit. ■ Working Tax Credits. You must also be responsible for paying the energy bills for the property. ■
How to apply Newport Council will write to eligible households they are aware of, inviting them to make a claim to the scheme. But you can also apply as an individual to the council. All applications must be received by 18 February 2022.
Bridge Brief: Information for Newport City Homes customers
Payments will be made from January until 31 March 2022. If you experiencing severe financial hardship you can also make a claim to the Welsh Government’s Discretionary Assistance Fund (DAF). Apply online or call 0800 859 5924. Scan this QR code on your mobile phone to apply
Listening to what you tell us Customer feedback is so important to us and offers us the best insight into what services you value and need. We use feedback from many different places such as complaints, repairs surveys, quarterly STAR surveys, NCH Connected, repeat contact and our online services. All feedback from both satisfied and dissatisfied customers, is logged so we can find ways to improve and celebrate success. This means we can improve our services and customer experience ensuring expectations are met, and show we listen to you, our customers. Customer journey mapping This describes how we improve our customer experience. Great customer service relies on us having a good understanding of how you interact with our services. We make a visual map of how you interact with us from the first point you tell us something to what happens at each stage until your problem is sorted out. It puts us in your shoes and helps us spot problems and ways we can make your lives easier and personalise their experience. Learning from complaints Anything we learn from a complaint is used to change how we work. This could lead to a training course for colleagues or we may alter a policy. Complaints and learning are reviewed by our Customer Feedback and Learning Panel, who ensure that changes
are made throughout the association. New approach to complaints A major change over the last year came from listening to you, our customers, and looking at it from your viewpoint. The service manager now calls the customer within 48-hours of receiving a complaint. This personal contact helps us to find solutions to complaints quickly rather than having customers wait up to 14 days for an outcome.
Visit newportcityhomes.com and search for ‘complaint or compliment’ and fill in the form. Call 01633 381 111 Use our webchat service Message on Facebook or Twitter Email enquiries@newportcityhomes.com
Since the start of this process, 24 complaints have been resolved by the service manager, and not escalated further. Contact us We have lots of ways you can get in touch to let us know you’re happy or unhappy.
We’re improving our payment system We are making some changes to the way we take payments, so that we can continue to improve this process for customers. With these changes it will be quicker and easier for you to make a payment on the go, or when it suits you. We’re writing to all customers later this month with the details, so look out for a letter from us. January 2022
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Share your views on Bridge Brief The magazine you’re holding in your hands right now is a handy way for us to keep you to date with information about our services to you, our customers. It’s posted out about twice a year. We want to find out what you
think of Bridge Brief and have put together a short survey. Your views on the magazine can help us make sure each edition is packed full of helpful and informative stories that you will look forward to receiving.
The survey will take less than five minutes to complete. This survey is anonymous and does not ask for any personal information. Visit https://www.surveymonkey. co.uk/r/BridgeBrief
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Don’t use the internet? If there is anything in Bridge Brief that is online and you want to find out more please contact us and we will do what we can to help.
Contact us newportcityhomes.co.uk Call 01633 381 111 Use Webchat on our website enquiries@newportcityhomes.co.uk @NewportCityH
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